Left Open Wide
by wisteria
Summary: "Just been out of my head lately."


DISCLAIMER: Not mine.  
  
RATING: PG-13 for vague allusions to adult matters.  
  
SPOILERS: The morning after "Wrecked"  
  
ARCHIVAL: My site only. Please feel free to link to it at http://alanna.net/fanfic/openwide.html  
  
E-MAIL: wisteria@smyrnacable.net  
  
SUMMARY: "Just been out of my head lately."  
  
LEFT OPEN WIDE  
  
by wisteria  
  
+++++  
  
She sleeps, long and deep. No dreams, or, if she does dream, she doesn't remember it in the morning.  
  
Back in the day, she was never such a heavy sleeper. The smallest noise would jolt her upright. Mom used to say that Buffy was like a little pixie, and all she had to do was tiptoe in and sprinkle fairy dust to wake up her little girl. But that was back when she was just a kid, back when magic was something in a David Copperfield special or a classmate's birthday party. It's all a mountain of different now.  
  
They call this kind of sleeping "like the dead." Appropriate, really.  
  
Shrill noises finally wake her up. She reaches over and slams her palm on the alarm clock. No snooze button this time, or she might never get out of bed. That option is far too tempting right now.  
  
But, things to do. Sisters to raise. Lives to fix.  
  
Responsibility really, really sucks.  
  
After pulling on her robe, she stumbles out into the hall. Legs are still trembly, but she prefers to think of it as a physical thing. Not nerves at all. Can't be. She's too strong to be weak. Her legs aren't supposed to shake like Jell-O.  
  
The bathroom is empty. Shock. Her muscles tense and she listens very, very carefully. Can't happen. Nothing bad can happen again. She won't let it.  
  
Then she hears the slide of wood-on-wood as a drawer opens in Dawn's room. Safe. Good.  
  
Faint spots of blood on her underwear. Thank God. Cycle's regular, no worries there. She hadn't bothered with the Pill since her return, and after the other night.... Sure, she knew that vampires couldn't... he couldn't... but you never know, now do you?  
  
Tap tap tap. Pounding on the door. "Hurry it up in there! I'm going to be late for homeroom if you don't quit your glamming it up, Buffy!"  
  
It'd all be so normal, except that Dawn's voice sounds hollow, and Buffy can hear it crack a little as Sis says her name.  
  
She doesn't bother with a shower. The rush of water through a spigot has lost its thrill. She used to love showering, loved the way the spray would needle-prick her skin and the feel of the vinyl loofah-thing on her belly. There are enough fancy bath gels and such for a dozen women, but only three women are left now. None of them are much for aromatherapy these days.  
  
No, the shower doesn't thrill anymore. Her body is betraying her, and she can barely stand to even touch it now. It's not that she feels dirty, really. She thinks she should -- she thinks that she should want to scrub him away, in all the places only fingers can reach. But when she took a shower yesterday morning, all she could think was of the way his finger crooked up just so, and the way she could actually feel the molecules of her body disassembling themselves into something that didn't feel human (but in a good way.)  
  
Isn't that what he had told her? That she wasn't quite human anymore?  
  
Well, her hair is oily. She has sleep-grit in the corners of her eyes. She got her period sometime last night. When she looks down, she can see the faint half-moons where her toenails have grown since she last polished them.  
  
'Course, nails continue to grow even after death. Bad example.  
  
When she shuffles out of the bathroom, mouth minty-fresh, Dawn is leaning against the opposite wall. Her cast stands out like a screwy piece of copper repipe. Good thing the happy pills won't wear off anytime soon, or Buffy would have to deal with Whiny Dawn.  
  
The girl gives an "about damn time" huff, then pushes past to enter the bathroom. Buffy glances over her shoulder to catch a glimpse before the door shuts. Dawn's almost as tall as she is now. She's growing up so fast. Scary to realize that her baby sister is probably going to be able to look over Buffy's head soon.  
  
Guess Dawn's growing up while Buffy's growing down.  
  
The door slides back open again. "Could you give me a hand with the baggie thing, Buffy?" In her good hand she holds out a plastic dry-cleaning bag and some masking tape.  
  
Buffy helps her fasten the bag around her cast so Dawn can shower, then the door closes again.  
  
Not even a 'thank you'. Some gratitude, that. Buffy'll have to start teaching her some manners. Weird to think that she's now the one responsible for teaching a younger human about etiquette and morality.  
  
The worst of it is that she knows her own morality is skewed out of proportion, so messed that she doesn't even know what it is anymore.  
  
She goes downstairs, each footfall jarring the muscles and skin between her legs that she'd rather just ignore. He told her she liked it rough. She told him he was bent. Similar words. She'd never, ever tell him that she didn't like it rough but she liked *that*.  
  
She was never one to keep her mouth shut for fear of saying the completely wrong thing. But that was before Spike, Mr. Say-Whatever-the-Hell-Is-On-My- Mind.  
  
If he'd just shut the hell up, maybe she'd start talking to him again. She liked that, back in the weeks when she'd just returned and he was actually being nice for a change. He listened to her. Nobody else did. And if she squinted and got really still, she could pretend that she didn't mind that he, of all beings, was the only one she could stand to be around.  
  
But now it's all different. She can't say a word to him without him twisting it into some grand declaration of how she wants him bad.  
  
Badly.  
  
Not bad.  
  
She doesn't want him Bad again. If that happened, she'd have to stake him. Again. And even pondering that possibility raises all sorts of really icky issues she'd rather not face.  
  
Like the fact that if she staked him, he'd be gone. Nothing to smack down one last time. Nothing to say goodbye to. Only a pile to make friends with a broom.  
  
Like the fact that if he wasn't there to listen to her and make her feel something approaching "good" and piss her off (in equal measures), she'd have nobody.  
  
She can't talk to Dawn.  
  
Xander and Anya are in their own little happy world -- though she's starting to suspect weeds in the garden.  
  
And Willow? Well. A big ball of wrong there. Another issue she'd rather not face.  
  
Willow's not downstairs, but Buffy spots her house key on the table next to the door. Probably upstairs asleep, which is good, really. Good because it means she's not out wreaking "magical" havoc. Good because it means Buffy won't have to look at her right now, and she doesn't know if she can stand to even look at Willow this morning. Not after last night.  
  
She wanders over to the cabinets and pulls out a bowl and cereal -- some kind of granola-y concoction. Another sign of growing up, that. When they were at the grocery last week, Buffy had habitually reached for the sugary bombs that Dawn always liked. But Dawn rolled her eyes and said, "Nope, I want the granola stuff. My friend Mikaela says that it's supposed to be better for your complexion or something." Whatever. No plastic treats at the bottom of this new box.  
  
Buffy pours a bowl of lumps of oats and honey, along with a liberal dose of milk. She sits at the breakfast table to eat it, feeling the way the milk slides down as the granola catches on her throat. Scratchy.  
  
If Tara were still here, she'd be doing her den mother bit. Would you like pancakes this morning, or maybe I could make an omelet? We don't have any of the green peppers, but I can add extra cheese and salsa.  
  
She misses Tara.  
  
Never expected that to happen. Oh, she liked Tara, but didn't *like* her. They never bonded, or whatever you were supposed to do with your best friend's girlfriend. But she was a comfort to have around, playing the mother to three other women who didn't have a clue how to do that for themselves.  
  
Buffy thinks maybe that's a tiny bit of the reason why Tara left. She knows now it was the whole Willow/magic thing, and frankly, she doesn't blame Tara one bit. They're both only twenty -- wait, Tara is 21 now -- and maybe Tara decided she just wanted to be a kid again instead of taking care of the rest of them. She wouldn't have consciously decided it, but sometimes those little things act as triggers.  
  
Still, it hurts. She misses Mom like hell. Buffy lost her pretend-Dad last week. Both her real parents are gone (real-Dad doesn't even bother to call much anymore) and now pretend-Mom is at some efficiency apartment where she can supposedly regroup after Willow's breakdown.  
  
Guess that's the way of the world. You love, you leave.  
  
Tara has a few legacies left, though. Buffy opens the newspaper on the bar. It's a few days old, full of news from a much easier world. The Iceman hadn't Cometh yet. Amy was still furry. Dawn still had two intact arms. Buffy hadn't done Sp-- hadn't done anything with Spike.  
  
Happy times. Yeah, right.  
  
The wind whistles through a tiny crack in the window frame. She can hear Spike's whisper in it. "Want me to come over and read that paper with you? If you ask nicely, luv, I'll brave the sunlight. The Bit will be at school soon, and you and I could have a bloody good day."  
  
She rolls up a page of the paper and shoves it in the crack. No more whispering.  
  
Dawn comes into the kitchen, her hair impossibly shiny. If she didn't know better, Buffy'd think that Dawn got all the good genes in the family. Guess the one good thing about being expressly created out of glowing energy is a healthy head of glossy hair.  
  
"Hey, thanks for leaving me some orange juice," Dawn says with a hint of snark in her voice. She holds up a finger of juice in her glass and shakes the empty carton.  
  
"You'll live," Buffy mutters.  
  
Won't we all? And if you don't live, she thinks, you'll just have friends who'll yank you right back to earth again.  
  
Dawn doesn't notice her sister's face, of course, possessing all the self- absorption of a typical fifteen-year-old. Buffy almost envies her sometimes. But just sometimes. The kid has her own set of really massive problems, and it's high time big sis figured out how to help with them, instead of just helping to cause them.  
  
Responsibility really, really sucks.  
  
She wants Mom back.  
  
"Hey, what's with all the garlic?" Dawn asks as she stands over the garbage can.  
  
Buffy feels cold wash over her, chilly as Spike's skin.  
  
She walks over to the can, looking down at the heaps of garlic bulbs laying among the detritus of a day in the Summers household. After an hour of huddling and shivering on her bed last night, she'd finally given up. Let him come. She could handle him. The worst of it is that she hadn't known what she would be handling. But as she, resigned, started taking down the garlic, she'd felt as strong as she'd ever been.  
  
Yeah, she could handle him.  
  
Yeah, right. That's what morning tells her. She can barely handle herself these days.  
  
She stares at the garlic, suddenly feeling free, totally free. 'Mercurial much, Buff?' she asks herself.  
  
It won't last, but it feels very good.  
  
A revelation. That's what he'd called their night together. Was it the good or bad kind, though? She had all day to figure that out. He can't come a'calling until nightfall, anyway.  
  
"You okay, Buffy? Why do we have all this garlic?"  
  
She shakes herself clear, then she walks over and grabs the rest of the newspaper, wadding it up and tossing it on top of the bulbs.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just been out of my head lately."  
  
If she says it enough times, maybe she'll start to believe it.  
  
+++++  
  
END (1/1)  
  
NOTES: I blame it on Wednesday night's BAPS chat, and a certain discussion of newspapers and footsies ;). Big shout-out to everyone who was there and provided inspiration.  
  
Song inspiration provided by my muse, Grant-Lee Phillips, and his song, "Mockingbirds". Gratuitous lyrics link: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/5923/mocking.html g  
  
Feedback would be fantabulous! wisteria@smyrnacable.net 


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